Common Sense

In the early 1980s I lived in the Central Valley of California in the city of Stockton with hot summers – many days of 105 degrees or more and cold damp winters.

Exhaust from cars would bond with the water molecules and give the fog a “stink”

Winters in the Central Valley where we would often experience Tuolumne or Tule Fog (pronounced Toolie). A layer of fog or clouds that would condense after a rain or cool moist conditions that forms a layer of fog beginning at 2,000 feet or lower. Temperatures in the 40s would seem lower due to the increased humidity and it made for bone chilling weather. Tule Fog is known for a constant mist or drizzle that is sometimes freezing when the temperature drops as it occasionally does.

Common sense and logic easily solved this question.

The chief problem of Tule Fog is that it is known not to burn off and thus would stay during the nights and days for weeks and even months on end. After a time the fog would begin to give off an odor. Exhaust from cars would bond with the water molecules and give the fog a “stink”

Common sense and logic easily solved this question. For me it was giving me the beginnings of breathing difficulties and an aversion to being outside due to the stench.

The University of California in Davis did a study of Tule Fog and pollution and “proved” what I already knew.

I didn’t need a scientific study telling me what I had already deduced from my experience.

This is a snapshot of a person living from fear as are others.

Extrapolating the Tule Fog inversion layer containing molecules of carbons and pollutants from cars to an inversion level around the world doesn’t take scientific proof.

Ninety seven percent of climate scientists have confirmed that human beings have produced enough carbon emissions to change the climate and trigger the beginnings of a mass extinction event that will end in the elimination of the human species unless we stop it.

Three percent of the scientists that disagree with the evidence have had their premises obscured through a variety of filters as well as others:

Fear and a desire to live in a past environment of the 1940s and 50s where growth was unchecked by environmental concerns

Suspension of Common Sense in favor of the security of a past reality

Under the pay of oil companies and Conservative PACS and Think Tanks that have a heavy investment in denying human contribution to climate change.

I have a relative that lives under the rubric of this fear and it permeates every aspect of her life. Before inheriting some money from another relative she was less conservation, more joyous and less obsessed with money and subsequent greed. It’s saddens me. Mere logic has no effect on her position. She watches and freely admits to relying on Fox News as an oasis surrounded by the heinous Liberal Media.

,,,doesn’t it make sense to begin to explore and develop alternatives to oil now rather than wait until gasoline reaches $20 per gallon?

Her isolation and refusal to live in the present is sad and disturbing. She won’t watch any recent TV shows or movies with James Spader because she wants to only remember him when he was young and sexy in “Sex, Lies and Videotape”. She won’t watch George Clooney or Sean Penn movies because their liberals and therefore – the enemy. I sent her a Noam Chomsky Interview around the time of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 2001. She said it made sense, but five days later she was shouting death to Muslims. She voted for Trump. At dinners out (around 5 to 6 pm) she can’t understand why families bring their children (screaming infants and toddlers) to dinner at restaurants – why they don’t hire babysitters. Even after a logic explanation of families wanting to be with their children and not being able to afford a sitter. Or she could choose to go to dinner at 8 pm when the likelihood of young children wouldn’t be eating out on a weeknight. She believes Wal-Mart serves a valuable service to communities… Need I go on.

This is a snapshot of a person living from fear as are others. I feel it when I’m around her (not very often). I remember in her before she was infested by money and greed. Not all of her old characteristics are gone – she displays caring at times but couched in denial of human responsibility to climate change.

Life and the changes in our world both technologically, politically and environmentally are overwhelming. Many people cannot tolerate the acceleration and destabilization of modern institutions. Intellectually and/or emotionally they require a simple solution to a problem.

With my relative I steer away from most of the content of my life (as a spiritual – political activist) and focus on the present and the personal. Its a common sense response to an immovable object.

The only way I would consider a debate with a person regarding climate change (like my relative) would be a side step of the issue. Coming from that oil is not a renewable resource – doesn’t it make sense to begin to explore and develop alternatives to oil now rather than wait until gasoline reaches $20 per gallon?